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Fear of Failure

I keep asking myself: “Why do I want to go skydiving?” Is it because of the excitement of jumping, the rush or just plain stupidity? As I was reading my other chick’s post, I realized that my reason–even if it’s not a great reason–has to do with fear.

Don’t get me wrong; I do not get a rush out of being scared. But I just realized that skydiving is my biggest fear. I fear being that high. I fear that the parachute won’t open. I fear that I might die. And I feel that if I could conquer this then I would be able to accomplish anything that is put before me without having the fear that I will fail at it.

In my rational mind I know that skydiving will not take that fear away. It would help with the actual fear of being that high, and I might just enjoy it. But it won’t help me deal with the fear of failure.

So how do I deal with this little issue that I have?

I was just reading this wonderful post from Luann Udell about Dealing With Failure http://luannudell.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/dealing-with-failure/.

“Edison trying and discarding 423 different materials before he found one that could successfully be used as a filament in his electric light bulbs. Supposedly, he would say, “I didn’t fail—I found 423 things that didn’t work!” In reality, I doubt he was that chipper at trial #218. I’m sure he had some choice words.

But the important thing to remember is, it wasn’t failure. It was a process. He didn’t take each failure as a “sign” he should not continue. He took it as a challenge, an opportunity to explore new possibilities.”

So as I go out into this world, I know that YES, I will fail, but I also know that this is a process. Who knows what great things might come out of something that I work on and fail 100 times in?

P.S. I still want to go skydiving!